One Phone for the masses

Reliance Jio has indeed been one of the most disruptive digital services we have seen in India for the last decade or so. Jio has successfully added 100 Million subscribers and is also piloting its broadband services. Jio upped the ante at the ongoing Annual AGM and launched the much awaited Jio feature phone. The JioPhone is tailor made to suit the Indian consumers and is expected to offer connectivity for nearly 78 crore feature phone users in India.

As we had reported exclusively earlier this month, the JioPhone is a feature phone that comes with an alpha numeric keyboard and a 4-way navigation pad. The phone comes with equipped with a 2.4-QVGA color display. The phone also comes with an SD card slot, Torchlight, headphone jack, FM radio and a basic camera. The JioPhone also supports 22-Regional languages and it comes with a voice assistant that seems to work flawlessly. Interestingly, the phone also supports NFC and will soon support digital payments just like Samsung Pay and Android Pay.

Needless to say, the JioPhone will offer free voice calls and data pack. The JioPhone users will be able to avail the 1GB/Day Unlimited data pack at a discounted price of Rs 153 every month. Moreover, the users can also opt for weekly plans priced at Rs 53 and two-day plan priced at Rs 23, both of which offer similar benefits as the monthly plan.

Jio has bettered the offer by giving away an optional TV cable. With this cable, JioPhone users can mirror their phone on the TV and access the content on the larger screen. The JioPhone is capable of running Jio apps like Jio TV, Jio Music and Jio Cinema which can be streamed to any TV via the cable. The data plan for the large screen TV is priced at Rs 309/month and the best part is that the TV cable is also compatible with old CRT TVs.

JioPhone Price and Availability

Reliance has indeed priced the JioPhone attractively. The Rs 1,500 paid for the device is completely refundable up on returning the device after a minimum of three years of usage. The JioPhone will be available for pre-order from August 24th across all Jio retailers and will ship from September. The JioPhone will soon be completely made in India. Reliance claims that they will be shipping 5 million JioPhones per week soon.

Mahit Huilgol Senior Author Mahit Huilgol is a Mechanical Engineering graduate and is a Technology and Automobile aficionado. He ditched the Corporate boardroom wars in favor of technology battleground. Also, a foodie by heart and loves both the edible chips and the non-edible silicon chips.